


Spin Endless Circles

by Nununununu



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Hopeful Ending, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:49:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29929545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: The low noise Cobb makes doesn’t seem to mean much of anything, but the light tug of his wrists against Din’s hold means plenty.Five times in which things don't go quite as Din very much hopes. Plus one more in which maybe they will.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	Spin Endless Circles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HermioneGrander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermioneGrander/gifts).



> A gift for HermioneGrander - some angst just for you XD <3
> 
> _We got all night to fall in love_   
>  _But just like that we fall apart_

“Oh.”

Cobb guides the helmet free from Din’s head and Din closes his eyes. His heart beating so hard he’s almost shaking with it, anticipation and nervousness a heady mix in his veins. Din’s gloved hands are up around Cobb’s wrists, holding on, revelling in the other man’s closeness. Revelling in him. Din’s wanted this for _so long_ , dreamed of it, yearned for it – to feel Cobb’s gaze on his bare face, to feel the touch of the other man’s skin.

But Cobb doesn’t touch him. He sets the helmet aside quietly on the table. The small sound is enough to make Din’s breath shudder, although something tenses down inside him when Cobb doesn’t say anything either, the nerves starting to wind tighter inside Din more than the anticipation. He can almost _feel_ the other man’s gaze running across what he’s revealed.

But Cobb doesn’t touch him. And he still doesn’t speak.

“Cobb?” Din bites his lip. Tries to keep his expression from seeming too very hopeful, although he knows he must be broadcasting it. A little fear too almost, swimming up from somewhere vulnerable he tries not to acknowledge, a crack that hints at a chasm opening up deep inside him.

“Mm,” The low noise Cobb makes doesn’t seem to mean much of anything, but the light tug of his wrists against Din’s hold means plenty. Din lets him go.

“Let me just, uh. I’ll just get us a drink,” Cobb clears his throat, voice a bit gruff. Seeking to conceal whatever it is that he’s feeling, when he’d been just as wound up and enthusiastic as Din back before removing the helmet.

“Is – Are you okay?” _Are we okay?_

It seems the answer to both of those questions might not be what he aches to hear.

Opening his eyes as that chasm yawns wider inside him, feeling like it’s set to swallow every part of him, Din looks desperately at the man he’d so hoped he could hang his future on; that he’d so wished to build a life together – a life forever – with. Catches a look of something very much like disappointment or maybe just hollowness flashing swift across Cobb’s face.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” Cobb waves a hand as if this will cover the truth.

“Clearly it’s something,” Din can feel himself getting prickly and defensive. Frantic to know what’s gone wrong.

What else could it be? It’s him. _He’s_ gone wrong. Or rather –

It’s his face. He should have left the helmet on. Let Cobb believe the real Din inside was someone he wanted. Then none of this would have happened.

“It’s not you,” Cobb starts, turned away from him, concentration determinedly on getting that drink.

Din doesn’t wait to hear the rest of it, already hastening to leave. Because yes. Yes it is.

-*-

“I’m real sorry,” The tenderness in Cobb’s touch as he cups Din’s face very lightly in his hands is perhaps even worse than his tone of genuine regret, “It’s not you, it’s –”

“Yeah,” His eyes burning, heart hurting, whole body still – _still_ – shaking with awful, misplaced yearning, Din pulls away, “Yeah it is.” _It is me_.

The silence that follows is nearly unbearable.

Then, ““I’ll just, uh,” It’s the first time Din’s sound Cobb truly sound awkward, although he strives to cover it, clearing his throat, “I’ll just get us a drink.”

“No need,” Din’s voice comes out appallingly husky, for all his throat feels like he’s eaten glass. While he hides it behind the modulator, burying himself back in the helmet, when he tries to say anything further he can’t speak.

“Hey – hey now, you don’t need to go,” Cobb still sounds so gentle, so kind and sincere, a touch of something much like alarm – and apology – in his gaze when he glances back from where he’s turned away, “Please. Din. I’d like it if you stayed.”

Din’s certain that, for all this, Cobb also still sounds disappointed.

Yeah, well he’s not the only one feeling that way.

“I don’t think so,” This time it comes out harshly. It doesn’t make him feel in any way better, but Din fails to resist the urge to slap the door shut behind him as he leaves.

He climbs onto the speeder parked outside and pretends he’s not trembling. Kicks it into starting and ignores the light that falls behind him as Cobb opens the door to step out after him, calling something almost urgently as Din pushes the bike as fast as he can in his hurry to get away.

He doesn’t go back to Tatooine.

-*-

He goes back to Tatooine.

Grogu is gone, Din’s got a weapon and supposed responsibilities he never wanted, and all he _does_ want is everything he can’t have. At least Cobb said he hoped they would meet again. At least hopefully Mos Pelgo is somewhere he can rest, just for a while.

And if Din is too unhappy to identify the tiny fragile hope setting out a delicate root deep inside him at first, after months of staying with Cobb, after months of getting to know the other man better, months of living alongside him, living _with_ him, learning how well they fit together in every way –

Well. By the time these months have passed, that tiny root has grown into a great flower, ready to unfurl into something that promises it could be beautiful.

“I want to show you,” Din raises his hands to his helmet. It’s night and the sky is liberally sprinkled with stars, and he’s nestled safe and warm in Cobb’s arms, the other man pressing a kiss to the brow of the helmet.

“Yeah,” Cobb says, his voice husky, and, “Please.”

Din hasn’t taken off the helmet since Grogu. His heart had felt like it was breaking then. His heart is beating hard with nerves and giddy anticipation now, and hope. Hope that Cobb will touch his face, his skin. Hope to feel the other man’s kiss. Hope to be able to kiss in return. Catching the tender look Cobb gives him as Din starts to take the helmet off, he dares to believe.

“Oh.”

It’s not –

It’s not the tone of voice he was expecting. Hoped for. _Wished_ for, even. It’s not –

“Din, I –” There’s something odd about Cobb’s voice; about the way he scans Din’s bared face in the moons’ light, in the light of all those stars. Like he’s searching for something he expected – longed – to see.

Something that isn’t there.

“I’m sorry, I –” His arms come down from Din’s shoulders as he takes a half-step back, brow wrinkling, before he shakes his head. Brings a hand up as if in offer touch Din’s cheek, maybe to turn Din’s face another way. Maybe as if thinking that, if he angles it differently, he might find that missing thing.

Din’s the missing thing. Or rather his helmet is.

“It’s okay,” He steps back himself, avoiding the touch. Swallows hard. Because it is.

It’s _not_ , it’s not okay in any sense, but –

But it will have to be. He shouldn’t have presumed. Should have let himself believe. Shouldn’t have dared to hope Cobb would want the real Din, the one inside the armour.

No. That’s not fair on Cobb. But this – For all Cobb looks so desperately apologetic, it also doesn’t feel like it’s fair on Din.

That’s just his aching heart talking. A chasm opened inside him to swallow that flower before it could properly bloom.

“I’m real sorry,” Cobb says again and he looks so very much like he means it, “It’s not you.”

Din holds a hand up before he can finish that. “No, it’s not,” He agrees.

He spends the night awake on Cobb’s uncomfortable couch and leaves in the predawn half-light. Doesn’t go back again to Tatooine.

-*-

Din takes the helmet off and looks up at Cobb. All of his hopes, all of his closely held yearning beating hard in his throat, his heart battering at his ribs. Seeing Cobb for the first time without the visor is –

“Oh.”

He looks so different.

Din blinks. Cobb blinks back at him. His arms are around Din, the sky spread with stars above them. Maybe it’s just the lack of visibility. Things suddenly seem so unclear.

“Let me just, uh,” Din takes a step backwards when Cobb raises a hand as if to touch his fingertips to Din’s face. Din swallows, gaze skittering away with sudden desperation, although he doesn’t miss how desperately concerned Cobb’s starting to look, “Can I just. Get us a drink.”

“Okay,” Cobb says this very quietly. Follows Din into his own small home and stands there like a stranger, while Din pretends he recognises any of it. Without the helmet on, everything looks and feels so wrong. He doesn’t feel like himself. Cobb _definitely_ doesn’t look or sound like Din expected. And everything he sees inside this little house he’d tentatively hoped to call a shared home just seems strange.

All Din can think of is the moment in which Grogu was taken away.

But it’s not that, is it. It’s not that precisely, in this moment, that’s bothering him.

“Look. It’s not you,” Din squeezes his eyes closed for a second, forcing down fervent unhappiness and disappointment, trying so hard to make his gaze neutral as he looks over his shoulder at Cobb from where he’s turned away.

“Yeah,” Cobb doesn’t look for one instant like he’s convinced, hands opening and closing emptily, biting down hard on his lower lip as if struggling to compose himself. His voice rasps, “Yeah, it is.”

Din knows better though, even if he doesn’t know how to convince Cobb of it; even though before he took his helmet off, he’d been so sure they understood each other near perfectly.

Because it isn’t Cobb – or, well. Not really. It _is_ Din.

When he leaves Mos Pelgo the next morning after a sleepless night on the couch, Cobb tries to stop him. Din apologises, his heart aching, ribs yawning open inside him like his body has become some sort of chasm.

He leaves all the same.

-*-

“I guess, ah,” Cobb’s clearly aiming for laughter and doesn’t quite succeed, “I guess neither of us are quite what the other imagined, huh. You seeing what I look like without the visor or HUD and me, uh.” He leaves that sentence unfinished. Goes instead for, “I’m real sorry, partner. It’s not you.”

It’s strange without the helmet; it doesn’t feel right at all. Din steps back out of Cobb’s arms and nods jerkily.

“Yeah. I know,” He runs out of words for a second, emptiness yawning inside his chest. But it’s important Cobb understand this, “It’s really not you, either.”

“No worries, partner,” This time Cobb manages a rueful grin. If it looks wobbly around the edges, Din doesn’t comment, “Suppose we just had expectations of each other that didn’t add up.”

“Yeah,” On gaining the other man’s nod to go ahead, Din swallows down regret and pours them both a drink. It very much feels like they need it, “Well then. I suppose that’s it.”

When he’s tossed back the drink, he puts the helmet back on with a sense of profound relief, the world turning right again, even if the desire to reach out to the other man is – lessened. As if something that was so strong and heady and filled with promise between them has just gone away.

Din strives to summon up a crooked smile for Cobb although the other man won’t see it. His heart _hurts_ , but the feeling will fade before too long. Most things do.

“No hard feelings, yeah?” Cobb salutes Din with his glass before tossing his own drink back.

“No hard feelings,” Din agrees. If his voice comes out scratchy, it’s hidden by the modulator. The throb of leftover emotions all tinged with disappointment. Disappointment and misplaced hopes and dreams.

In time these will also fade.

“Still friends, though?” Cobb’s scrutinising the helmet like he understands it better than he did Din’s face.

“Always,” Din nods because it’s the truth. Even if it doesn’t seem the same anymore somehow. Still, it’s good to know they can continue to depend on each other; will still have each other’s backs.

He ends up leaving at first light anyway. Cobb doesn’t ask him to stay.

-*-

“Maybe I’ll,” Din drops his hands from the helmet before he can take it off, his mind changed, “Maybe I’ll just – not.”

“Fair enough, partner,” Cobb shrugs reasonably equably, although there’s a flicker of something in his gaze, “How about I get us both a drink. Plus a straw for you, that is.” He winks.

Din had rather been hoping the other man would in fact hold him in his arms. That Cobb might even go as far as to kiss him. That if he did take his helmet off, he might have had the courage to do the same. But everything that had felt like it had been building up between them this star-filled night seems to have drained away. A small crack with hollowness spilling out of it inside Din, threatening to become a gaping chasm if he lets it.

He’s not going to let it. He’s used to feeling hollow. Give it time and the feeling will fade enough that he can ignore it, like he does so many other things.

Din follows Cobb towards the other man’s small home as Cobb leads the way, before pausing at the door to gesture for Din to precede him inside. Catches a look of something very much like disappointment or maybe just that same hollowness flashing swift across Cobb’s face.

They toast each other and their friendship over that drink, and then Cobb leaves Din to spend the night on his uncomfortable couch. If Din doesn’t sleep very well – well. He never sleeps particularly brilliantly anyway.

_Plus One_

“Hey,” Cobb’s hands go up to close gently around Din’s wrists, not stopping him but not hastening him on either. He brushes a kiss across the brow of the helmet as Din yearns to melt into him, “You sure about this?”

Din is sure. He’s never been so certain of anything except for the desire to see Grogu without the helmet between them and for Grogu to see him.

Now he longs for Cobb to see him, although it’s in quite a different way.

“I’m sure,” Smiling helplessly, Din gives in to the urge to drag Cobb in yet closer so he can press the brow of the helmet to the other man’s forehead, returning that kiss, relishing in Cobb’s little indrawn breath.

“You ready then?” Grinning crookedly when Din draws back just enough for them to see each other, his eyes dancing, Cobb lets Din draw their joined hands up to the helmet’s lip, “Because I sure can’t wait to meet the gorgeous man just waiting underneath this here thing.”

“I’m not so sure there’s anyone gorgeous under it, but I do know I can’t wait to see you without the visor,” Breathless with hope and anticipation, near trembling with all of his wishes and heartfelt yearning, Din agrees, “To see what you really look like and for you to see me.” Biting his lip at the feeling of his heart thumping hard at the look Cobb gives him and at the flush of giddy warmth in his cheeks as they start to guide the helmet off together, “I’m ready.”


End file.
